Right, so there's a YouTube channel I like called Overly Sarcastic Productions. I'm sure many of you are familiar with them - they do a few different series, including History Summarized, a show which goes through the history of countries, empires, cities, etc.
The other day, they put up a video about Kyiv. The video was unusually jingoistic and anti-Russian; they don't normally pick sides in their content (but then, I guess most of the time they aren't talking about current events). On top of this, they spent quite a while equating the people of the Kievan Rus with the modern State of Ukraine, which some more historically-minded people in the comments section had a problem with. A few other people called them out for the petty anti-Russia stuff, but most either agreed with it or didn't seem to mind.
Anyway, I saw it on my subscription feed earlier, and noticed that it had a fundraiser. I found the links in pic rel in the bio.
Long story short, it turns out they the video was literally a piece of Ukrainian-government-sponsored propaganda. BraveVoices is some sort of content hub which encourages people to repost their pre-prepared videos about Ukraine or use their stock footage in original content. From their website:
Ukraine's bravery and resilience in defending against the Russian invasion continue to impress.
However, global attention to the war is waning, and fatigue from Ukrainian news growing. New media and formats are crucial to keep Ukraine on the agenda and maintain global support for its fight for freedom and democratic values.
Their Content page ends with the following:
Promote the UNITED24.MEDIA on YouTube
1.Encourage your audience to subscribe our channel using the handle @United24.media
2.Mention the United24.media channel in your Instagram story or YouTube video and tag it in the description
3.Promote specific content from the United24.Media channel in descriptions to your videos.
4.Add videos from United24.Media to end screens of your videos.
But what is UNITED24? UNITED24 is "the fundraising platform of Ukraine", according to its website.
The video ends with a call for people to donate to UNITED24 and subscribe to BraveVoices, as requested on the BraveVoices website.
They also offer to bring people to Ukraine, which... yeah, I'm happy not getting hit by a kalibr, thanks. I think it's to make content about Ukraine, but I'm not sure who would take them up on that offer (who am I kidding? There are influencers who would jump at the chance).
Oh yeah, the other link is just some kind of charity established in 2014 and based in the US, which isn't suspicious at all. Probably just a money making venture, but who knows.
Either way, this has actually quite upset me. I really liked that channel, and now they've literally just become a propaganda outlet, lying to people en masse.
I love OSP and once i saw that video on the subscription page i knew it would be something like that. Red&Blue are mostly ok, but they're hopelessly radlib. Blue is a product of an education that considers anything after Aristotle not really worth considering (he's on the record saying that Hegel doesn't make any sense and that modern philosophy was his least favorite class in college), and Red seems to be a firm believer in the "capitalism is bad, but we can make it better" camp. Either that, or she's keeping her powerlevel very well hidden. All in all, they never seem to endorse or understand the motivations of radical historical figures or fictional characters, giving them a very enlightened centrist vibe. I never expect anything other than the very mainstream from them.
That being said, they raise money constantly, and seem to be big believers in charity as a way to make a change in peoples' lives (which is true, only limited in scope, but so is mutual aid, so huh), and considering that they live comfortable lives in the imperial core consuming regular media it was a matter of time that they repeat the party line unquestioningly. They expressed support to Ukrainian charities giving food and shelter to people escaping the warzone before, but I can imagine an opportunity to make content to support what they see as a "good cause" and raise money was also a good way for them to do it without affecting their schedules too much.
All of this to say, i don't think they should be canceled over this. Considering the
takes i've seen from other content creators, this is pretty tame, and explained better by ignorance rather than malice or straight up greed. Youtube personalities are definitely not the kind of people you would expect to have the most correct anti-imperialist takes, nor should you expect that from them.
I agree with everything you've said, but it's still a shame to see it :( It won't age well at all, either.